We have to live by the highest ethical standards in athletics.
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This story originally appeared in the Times Picayune on 10/25/02.
Reprinted by permission.
Ted Lewis and Marty Mul?
Scott Cowen became Tulane's president in August 1998, just in time for the Green Wave's perfect football season. Since then he has overseen a change at athletic director, replacing Sandy Barbour with Rick Dickson, has taken steps to improve the finances of the athletic department as well as the university, and even comes to games with his face decorated with Tulane emblems. Cowen spoke with Times-Picayune staff writers Ted Lewis and Marty Mul? about the state of the Green Wave and college athletics:
Let's start out talking about money. Do Tulane athletics need to move toward being more self-sustaining or can the university continue or even increase its support?
I think what we have to make sure of it is that the athletic department is operating on a budget and resources that's appropriate within the mission and appropriate within the context of the university, and what we would expect to see of other schools in similar situations. I think (Athletic Director) Rick (Dickson) now has figured out what special events he can do which are attractive to fans and also can help with the bottom line. He's now starting to get the formula down pretty good.
If you're going to be Division I-A, especially if you're not in a BCS conference, you've got to be prepared to provide a certain amount of support. What you hope for is that your athletic department is performing at a high level in terms of being creative in providing events and so forth. What I'm convinced of right now is that given we're a private school with high academic standards, in a non-BCS conference, the amount of resources we're spending on athletics is consistent with what other similar institutions are doing. But I also think Rick can improve on that.
Regardless of finances, is it possible for Tulane to remain competitive at the level it is now in athletics and maintain its academic integrity?
Yes. It's really important for intercollegiate athletics in general that the Tulanes of the world remain competitive without compromising their academic standards. How competitive really varies by sport. There are several sports where we can be among the very best in the country, and there are sports in which it may be more difficult to have the best win-loss record every year and yet we can still be very competitive. I think I've been very consistent since I've been here in demonstrating that I am a great supporter of intercollegiate athletics, and my priorities around it are very clear. I believe that we have to recruit and graduate student-athletes. And one of the most important things we have to do here is to make sure we are recruiting student-athletes who can do very well in our system and who will graduate.
Because I will tell you that if we bring student-athletes in here and they can't graduate, no matter what our record is on the field, regardless of support, we are a failure.
I also think we have to live by the highest ethical standards in athletics. Knock wood since I've been here, but we haven't had any kind of big issue that I know of. We've had a couple of incidents here and there, but nothing big. It's very important to me that we have a program that not just lives by the standards the NCAA sets but a higher level than that. We expect that of ourselves. Third, I've always believed we want to be able to compete. A lot times that's wins and losses, but also a lot of times it's just being able to get on the field and being able to compete with anybody.
Tulane recently fared very well in the latest NCAA graduation rates, 11th overall and fifth in football. We're sure you took great pride in that.
To me that is the most important thing. I think a lot of Division I-A schools have lost sight of that. They're measuring success by either how much money they make or how many wins and losses they have. And the fact they have graduation rates of 20, 30, 40 per cent which they are willing to live with, I think that's intolerable. And the more institutions have that attitude, the more I think Division I-A athletics in particular will deteriorate over time.
There is always talk that Tulane operates under unfairly high academic standards for its athletes. Do you believe that they are fair and would you consider relaxing them?
I think the standards are very fair, when you think that once again our main thing is to make sure that we recruit student athletes who have the high probability of graduating, and I think our track record speaks for itself.
The academic standards we have established and how that translates into admissions and eligibility has increased the probability that when these young men and women come to us they will in fact graduate. Therefore to me, they have been successful, even though I recognize there are others who might say they put us at a competitive disadvantage. I have to tell you, if that would sacrifice graduation rates, I am not going to make that sacrifice.
How do you view the faculty's attitude toward athletics and how important is that to you?
I think it's hard to categorize a faculty that's a very large group. You really could put them into three large categories -- those that are advocates of intercollegiate athletics and they show support by coming to the games. There is another group who believe philosophically that universities, not just Tulane, but universities in general, should not be involved in big-time athletics because there is a belief that big-time athletics, as defined by Division I, is increasingly getting out sync with the academic missions of institutions. And then there's the third group in there that's relatively indifferent.
Faculty is a very important constituency of the university, so I always listen to them and it's always part of whatever decision-making process I have to make concerning the institution.
Rick Dickson has spoken of a "disconnect" between Tulane and the community, presumably athletically but perhaps academically as well. Do you agree and what can be done to improve it?
I think if we lowered our academic standards so that we could recruit student athletes so that we could increase the probability significantly that we would have very good win-loss records in every sport, I suspect that over time that would increase the fan base out there, because I suspect that the fans would come out and whether it's a football team or a basketball team or a baseball team or whatever it might be that is winning most of its games that would do it. But I think there are fans out there who either don't want to hear or don't understand that academic values, in the end, are more important than the win-loss. That's where the disconnect has been. We have not been willing to sacrifice everything just to get more wins every year in whatever sport it may be and we're always playing that balance between being competitive and maintaining that academic balance, but the fans don't want to hear it.
I think personally, and I am totally biased, that there are fans out there who should be thanking God that there are schools like Tulane in Division I-A. I think we have our values all screwed up in how we're looking at Division I-A. So we're applauding those schools who do well regardless of what their graduation rates are, regardless of what they're paying coaches. We're applauding them like they're doing the right thing and in a way telling us, "Well what's wrong with you?" We should be saying it the other way -- that Tulane's probably got it right and it's the other schools that the values have gotten off kilter.
Earlier you spoke about BCS and non-BCS. Do you see that trend continuing or will perhaps there be some reversal of process through the NCAA, perhaps in establishing a playoff?
I actually think that Division I-A athletics is getting further and further away from the academic missions of our universities. I think the BCS arrangement was one gigantic step to try to put a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots. So you have six conferences in the BCS sharing the vast majority of the money with everybody else getting the crumbs. And yet we are supposed to compete at the same level.
So I am extremely negative on the BCS arrangement and not just financially. I'm not surprised if the BCS was challenged in court it would be found to be illegal, a cartel. Nobody's done it because everybody's afraid to do it. No individual school wants to take up the legal responsibility to do it, and then everybody who's in a non-BCS conference lives in the hope they'll become a BCS conference and they don't want to offend anybody by doing it.
The BCS has been one of the worst things to happen in the last decade to Division I-A. It's really created a gap there.
The second thing is what's going on in the NCAA. The NCAA has exacerbated an already bad situation by changing the membership criteria effective 2004. The net result of it is to make it even more costly to remain in Division I-A. In our case, we're having to add another women's sport.
Either it's conscious or unconscious, but I think there's an effort out there to divide this up between the haves and the have-nots, and the have-nots are increasingly being squeezed. I think someday someone will have the courage to challenge that in the courts and hopefully get that changed. And then hopefully the NCAA will come to its senses, and not increase the barriers to being in Division I-A but perhaps lower them. But right now the trend line is not good.
I wish we would put a lot more emphasis on improving the academic quality of the experience of the athlete when they're in college and making sure they graduate. After all, when it's said and done, very few of these kids go on to professional careers. Very few. So what do they have left when it's all done? Hopefully a degree. If they don't have a degree, all they've done is been exploited by universities for the benefit and glory of a win on the field. But that student-athlete's no better off than he was before.
That's why the NCAA has got to help us put even more emphasis that it's a high quality experience for student-athletes.
Finally, back in 1998 you talked about restoring the marching band. It's four years later, and there still isn't one. Have you made any progress there?
My image of what Tulane should have as a band is what Rice University has. That fits our image and capabilities here. But a lot of times you can't have a band unless you have a big music program and that you can give scholarships for it. We don't have that here. We do have a music department, but they're into classics and jazz. But I do like the notion of what they call a "scramble band," and I've suggested that ever since I've been here. I was hoping that Soundwave would evolve into that, and I'm still hoping some day that it will. It's still a work in progress.
10/25/02
? The Times-Picayune. Used with permission.
